I realise now at 1/25/11 this site isn't hugely active. However when it becomes active I want this section full of helpful threads.

This tutorial covers drawing in allegro.

For this tutorial you can use this image because I made it, so no copyright infringement. Save as->.bmp

You need to know allegro by default only accepts .bmp images. This isn't very important, but you need to be aware of it.

You can use a bitmap with a pointer.

Code:

BITMAP *Background;

Remember to inintialize it after allegro_init().

The function is load_bitmap(par1, par2). It takes a image parameter and a custom pallette paramter you almost always will set to NULL.
You should also always check if the image isn't there to prevent crashes.